The trailblazing Johanna Rodrigues 

B-Girl Jo

Dancing is the poetry of the feet ~ John Dryden

 Dance with your heart and your feet will follow ~ Mia Michaels (edited)

True human potential is only embraced when we overcome stereotypes and social barriers. Case in point: Johanna Rodrigues aka b-girl Jo has been 'breaking' the mould, blazing new trails in the sport of Breaking.

Check out this Red Bull cover story of Johanna Rodrigues 

Long before Johanna began improvising breaking routines combining Indian classical Bharatnatyam dance, Kalaripayattu martial arts and Yoga training with headstands and backflips in a quest to "redefine femininity", she found inspiration at home in her fearless mother (and my first cousin) Rhoda.  

Early days

She remembers her early days in these words, “My mother, who is widowed, didn’t have much extra time on her hands to take me to different classes. But what she did was to enrol me into neighbourhood yoga lessons when I was 12. That started bringing me some kind of connection with my body at a very young age. When I was young, I especially loved the breaking movies with female characters wearing crop tops and baggy pants. I couldn’t help but find it really cool. We weren’t able to watch films in movie theatres in those days. We would be sitting in front of a friend’s computer with an Internet connection, testing our passion and patience to find the right link. For the longest time Breaking as a sport was considered only for boys. There were too many who thought it isn’t suited for girls, too many stereotypes surrounded us especially when we’d perform in the smaller towns."

Around the age of 15, she really wanted to dance, and even enrolled for a few classes of contemporary Indian dance. Alas it wasn't her cup of tea mainly because all the other girls were much much younger (around 9 years old) and the instructor enforced a rigorous approach to dancing.

At 17, Johanna Rodrigues had the best year of her life. She had passed 12th grade with 92% - no mean feat - she credits the achievement to finally finding happiness and motivation through breaking. 

The rest as they say is history: She decided to take the path less travelled. 

The fastest, cleanest, most joyful way to break out of your own box is by dancing. I'm not talking about doing the stand-and-sway. I'm talking about dancing so deep, so hard, so full of the beat that you are nothing but the dance and the beat and the sweat and the heat. 

~ Gabrielle Roth

First brush with Breaking

Looking back Johanna, now 25 said, "I stumbled into a neighbourhood jam, known as Freeze 2013 run by Black Ice Crew in Bengaluru. It was there that I saw breaking live for the first time and actually understood what it was. Watching the performances of a great DJ and wonderful breakers left a lasting impression on me. I still remember being fascinated by B-Boy Storm, B-Boy Abdul and B-Boy Astik. I had seen all these movies. At that age, Center Stage (2000) and Step Up (2006) and all was very attractive to me. I just loved the idea of a group of kids having fun on their own. For a lot of other sports and arts you have to comply with your teacher, you have to do it the way they say. But as a teenager, I really didn’t want to do anything like that. I think breaking was one of those things that gave me the freedom to do it the way I want to do it. I had fallen in love with hip-hop culture and the vibe of people in the community. It was a bunch of highly motivated people trying to be the best versions of themselves. I was grateful that I could now be one of them”

What started as rebellious fun, soon became her passion. "When I was learning, I would go to the beach on my own and practice a flip like 100 times over and over again. There’s something incredibly peaceful about being able to spend that kind of time with oneself. It’s just you and the form and nothing else,” she says.

Competitive success

Now she was ready to show the world her stuff. In August 2018, Johanna, who goes by the name B-Girl Jo, won her first solo competition when she participated in the B-Girl category at Project Street Art in Delhi. Her team (Black Ice Crew) also won the crew battle at Blame It On The Boogie that year. At the start of 2019, she participated in the open battle at IIT Chennai’s college festival, Saarang. It was her first time travelling alone yet she won the competition.

 

There was no stopping her now. 

It was only a matter of time before she became the first-ever B-Girl champion at Red Bull BC One Cypher India in 2019. Red Bull BC One is one of the few jams where Indian breakers get to interact with international dancers.  She defended her crown by winning her second Red Bull BC One India championship in September 2021 by unanimous vote of all three judges and was chosen to represent India at the November 2021, World Final in Gdansk, Poland.

What's next

The International Olympic Committee, looking to find new ways to engage a younger audience, first introduced the sport of breaking at the Youth Olympic Games at the 2018 Buenos Aires edition. Impressed by the response, they decided to instate it as a sport at the Summer Olympics in Paris 2024. “Initially I wasn’t sure how it will change, but I am already seeing that dancers’ families are taking it a lot more seriously and that’s really helpful for them to grow,” says Johanna. “People are more willing to fund it now that they know that it is recognised as an Olympic sport. I also know that schools are going to be more open to it being taught. That opens up a whole space for breakers to teach,” she adds. 

But Johanna aims ever higher that the Olympics. “My driving force has never been money or fame. Every competitor I face, I am just seeing it as an opportunity to reach a higher version of myself. My friends recently were encouraging me to go commercial, and make the most on social media, but I don’t know if I am cut out for it. Emotionally and mentally I am a very sensitive person and I need my grounded yoga practice and time with myself to build on what I already have. If things go well, I will manifest for many what I have for myself,” she says.

You go B-girl Jo. Stay grounded even as you shoot for the stars.

Don't forget to leave a comment encouraging this intrepid warrior!!

Sources
1. https://www.redbull.com/in-en/how-i-got-into-breaking-b-girl-jo
2. https://www.scmp.com/video/asia/3036884/female-indian-breakdancer-hopes-flip-norms-world-championships
3. https://lifestyle.livemint.com/news/big-story/bgirl-jo-breaking-the-olympic-mould-111637666421491.html
4. https://openthemagazine.com/feature/breaking-free-2/
5. https://olympics.com/en/news/breaking-dancing-cypher-india-2021-results